Poland's centre-right Civic Platform is to start talks later this week to form a coalition government after preliminary results showed it had defeated the government but had fallen short of an overall majority.
With 99% of the votes counted from yesterday's election, the Civic Platform has 41% of the vote, giving it 209 seats, or 22 short of an overall majority in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm.
The Prime Minister, Jaroslaw Kaczynski, has already conceded defeat, after his Law and Justice party received 32% of the vote (166 seats). His twin brother Lech's term of office as president continues until 2010.
Civic Platform's leader Donald Tusk is expected to be the new prime minister. Party officials have told wire services that Mr Tusk will start talks in the second half of this week with the centrist Peasants' Party, which garnered almost 9% of the vote.
The Left and Democrats, an alliance steered by the ex-communist Social Democrats, had 13% and was set to pick up 52 seats.
Civic Platform officials said a decision on a coalition would be taken on 10 November.
Foreign votes not yet counted
Final results from the election are due tomorrow. There were 24,000 Poles registered to vote in Ireland among a total of 180,000 in 94 countries.
However, the electoral commission said it has not yet counted votes cast abroad as it was awaiting figures from the foreign ministry.
It said it had sent a letter warning the ministry of a 24-hour limit on forwarding such information, though the foreign ministry denied there had been a delay.
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